The Epstein saga and the Maxwell drama proves that the rules are different here in Florida

You will not be surprised to learn that the state of Florida played a major role in enabling Epstein.

Having amassed vast evidence he’d raped and sexually assaulted at least a dozen under-age girls, Palm Beach County cops searched his Palm Beach mansion in 2005, only to find his six computer hard drives had disappeared.

Epstein finally got arrested, and though a federal grand jury returned a 60-count indictment, he was allowed to plead guilty only to “soliciting a prostitute.”

In 2008, he was put into the private wing of the Palm Beach County jail. He had his own television room. His personal driver arrived every morning to take him to his office.

Turns out the Palm Beach County state attorney, the FBI, prosecutors and the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Florida — a man named Alex Acosta, later appointed Secretary of Labor by Donald Trump — colluded to give Epstein the sweetest of sweet deals: a 20-month sentence.

He served about a year.

This is corrupt even by Florida standards.

When he got out in 2009, Epstein went back to living the lifestyle of the rich and infamous while the young women he assaulted and exploited were forgotten.

We might never have known all this were it not for the relentless and brilliant work of journalist Julie Brown, whose 2018 series in the Miami Herald gave voice to his victims: She tracked down more than five dozen of them.

Brown’s reporting detailed how he’d prey on homeless girls or especially vulnerable kids, paying them to bring in other girls.

This sex-trafficking “pyramid scheme,” as Brown calls it, was run by Ghislaine Maxwell.

Maxwell would visit South Florida gyms and spas, telling petite blonde high schoolers — apparently Epstein’s “type” — they could make big money giving massages to “this old guy.”

She encountered 17-year old Virginia Giuffre working at Mar-a-Lago’s spa and convinced her to “work” for Epstein.

Virginia Giuffre said Epstein passed her around to various men, including Prince Andrew and prominent lawyer Alan Dershowitz, instructing her to have sex with them. Prince Andrew denied the allegations but he wound up reaching a settlement with Giuffre. Dershowitz has also repeatedly denied allegations. Giuffre dropped her allegations against Dershowitz in 2022 and said she “may have made a mistake.”

Trump claims he had no idea what his good friend Jeffrey was up to back then, variously insisting he ditched Epstein for being “sleazy” (insert your own pot-and-kettle joke here) or they quarreled over Epstein’s “stealing” his pretty young Mar-a-Lago employees.

Brown’s attention to the shady nonprosecution deal in Palm Beach eventually led to his 2019 New York arrest on federal sex trafficking charges.

Epstein, of course, is now dead, most likely by suicide — though lots of MAGAs don’t believe that.

Virginia Giuffre is also dead, definitely by suicide.

Ghislaine Maxwell, however, is still here.

She wasn’t exactly living her best life in Tallahassee, spending her days giving yoga classes, teaching etiquette (even criminals want to be ladylike!) and, no doubt, explaining over and over that her name is not pronounced “Gizz-Lane.”

MAGA (and quite a few Democrats) want her to talk; she wants out of prison.

She may be about to get lucky.

Thanks to Trumpists’ rich fantasy life, in which everything is a conspiracy of the Deep Swamp, she suddenly has some power.

She says she’ll testify in public as long as Congress agrees to a few little provisions as spelled out by her lawyer, chiefly immunity and a chance to see the committee’s questions in advance.

She also doesn’t want to appear before them until after the Supreme Court hears her appeal, in which she makes the thoroughly bizarre argument that the nonprosecution deal the Southern District of Florida cut with Epstein should apply to her, too.

Classic Florida move: The rules are different here.

Anyway, if they don’t comply, she’ll take the Fifth.

Trump keeps saying he’s “allowed” to pardon her, though he evades the question of whether he actually would.

That, no doubt, depends on what kind of dirt he thinks she has on him and whether that outweighs dirt she might have on his perceived enemies.